National Literacy Campaigns

We came to the task of editing this book from different disciplines and back grounds but with a mutuality of interest in exploring the concept of literacy campaigns in historical and comparative perspective. One of us is a professor of comparative education who has participated in and written about literacy campaigns in Third World countries, notably Nicaragua; the other is a com parative social historian who has written on literacy campaigns in Western his tory. Both of us believed that literacy could only be understood in particular As Harvey Graff has noted, "to consider any of the ways in historical contexts. which literacy intersects 'with social, political, economic, cultural, or psychological life ... requires excursions into other records.") Thus, we have set out in this edited collection to explore some five hundred years of literacy campaigns in vastly different societies: Reformation Germany, early modern Sweden and Scotland, the nineteenth-century United States, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russia and the Soviet Union, pre Revolutionary and Revolutionary China, and a variety of Third World countries in the post-World War II period (Tanzania, Cuba, Nicaragua, and India). In addition, we have included studies of the UNESCO-sponsored Experimental World Literacy Program and recent adult literacy efforts in three industrialized Western countries (the United Kingdom, France, and the United States).

Rebel Literacy is a look at Cuba's National Literacy Campaign of 1961 in historical and global contexts. The Cuban Revolution cannot be understood without a careful study of Cuba's prior struggles for national sovereignty. Similarly, an understanding of Cuba's National Literacy Campaign demands an inquiry into the historical currents of popular movements in Cuba to make education a right for all. The scope of this book, though, does not end with 1961 and is not limited to Cuba and its historical relations with Spain, the United States, and the former Soviet Union. Nearly 50 years after the Year of Education in Cuba, the Literacy Campaign's legacy is evident throughout Latin America and the 'Third World.' A world-wide movement today continues against neoliberalism and for a more humane and democratic global political economy. It is spreading literacy for critical global citizenship, and Cuba's National Literacy Campaign is a part of the foundation making this global movement possible. The author collected about 100 testimonies of participants in the Campaign, and many of their stories and perspectives are highlighted in one of the chapters. Theirs are the stories of perhaps the world's greatest educational accomplishment of the 20th Century, and critical educators of the 21st Century must not overlook the arduous and fruitful work that ordinary Cubans, many in their youth, contributed toward a nationalism and internationalism of emancipation.

Major campaigns to raise levels of literacy have taken place for centuries and share many common elements. But despite literary campaigns spanning over five decades, 860 million adults still lack minimal ability to read, write, and calculate. Why is literacy of such great importance and why have so many years of campaigning for it not been successful in fully overcoming this obstacle? "National Literacy Campaigns and Movements" explores these questions by examining campaigns in vastly different societies from a historical and comparative perspective.The volume focuses on literacy movements from the past, including those of Reformation Germany, early modern Sweden and Scotland, nineteenth-century United States, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russia and the Soviet Union, pre-Revolutionary and Revolutionary China, and Tanzania, Cuba, Nicaragua, and India. Contributors analyze literacy goals and outcomes in specific contexts. The editors distinguish quantitative and qualitative dimensions of literacy activities, such as the difference between the spread of literacy and patterns of its use. The common enterprise of this book is to expand upon the contributors' previous research to include a comparative dimension.This book offers the first systematic attempt to examine, critically and comparatively, the concepts and facts of large-scale literacy campaigns in more than a dozen societies over nearly five-hundred years. It offers a valuable historical lesson not only for historians, but also for educators: that instead of concentrating only on the recent period, we should use the vast and complex history of literacy movements to shed understanding on the present and future of literacy. A major new introduction to this edition asserts recent literary campaigns and the lessons provided by their success and failures. It also describes how the focus of some movements has evolved.

UNESCO pub. Case studies of literacy campaigns in Brazil, Myanmar, Cuba, China, Somalia, Tanzania the USSR and Viet Nam - points out the social implications of illiteracy, its impact on the individual, the family, the community, society and economic development; provides guidelines for educational planning and decision making for literacy campaigns.